Learn about our capabilities through 25 years of experience.
FUNDRAISING & SUSTAINABILITY
Development shops can be a swirl of competing priorities, making it difficult to identify how to meet the mission, while introducing meaningful and sustainable change. By carefully analyzing data and resources, we create implementable development plans that give teams concise direction on how to fund the change they need.
DONOR DISCOVERY
“Where have you been?” That was the question Fisher College and its alumni had been asking each other for nearly 100 years. By combining data analysis, surveys and leaning into the personal, small college approach, the alumni relations department warmed pathways with several hundred alumni of note, spanning an impressive six decades. We identified and qualified the top 100 major gift prospects, drafted individual giving plans for the President, initiated a legacy program, and ultimately created a solicitor-based portfolio with well-defined fundraising goals.
LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT
How do you diversify organizational leadership at both the board and advisory levels? By recognizing the organization as the center of the wheel, South Shore Art Center staff and faculty created programmatic intersections for volunteers to collaborate on common goals. Individuals were nominated, invited, or joined ad-hoc committees in support of programming, thus demonstrating and deepening their commitment.
WRITING THE PLAN
Institutionalizing founder-knowledge and engendering trust was the final push in a multi-year plan for the founders’ transition. Passing the torch from the founding circle of supporters to a new team was approached in several stages over five years. Writing and implementing a succession plan to ensure financial stability was step-one. Capturing important details on relationships helped to ensure Rehearsal for Life was well-positioned to thrive as it outgrew its roots as a family business. From the grants dashboard to prospects/solicitor rosters, no philanthropic stone was left unturned, enabling the team to start envisioning the future.
ART EXHIBITIONS & EXPERIENCES
Art can be found in the most unexpected places. We celebrate the artists’ legacy and ensure its future impact. Take a peek at some of the place-based art experiences that we’ve helped install, to raise awareness, increase funding and grow audiences, all the while being just plain fun.
DEEDEE AGEE RETROSPECTIVE
The Agee-Sprecher family asked, “How do we celebrate a legacy of artistic creativity and foster rising talent?” In collaboration with the family and volunteers, a loving tribute exhibition with a catalogue was mounted of 80+ curated works of Agee’s art. With urgency, it raised over $30,000 over four weeks through art sales and donations. Proceeds seeded a spend-down scholarship fund, supporting up and coming young artists.
FESTIVAL
How does a five-person (mostly) part-time staff pull off a three day outdoor art fair, without killing themselves? Reconceiving each fundraising platform in support of the largest, annual, three-day arts festival on the South Shore took collecting and harnessing an army of volunteers. Several thousand art patrons and volunteers engaged with the Art Center team in tactical touchpoints. Working smarter, the team was able to implement new revenue streams with built-in acquisition strategies and an aim to grow leadership and funding, netting $100,000 annually. Collective efforts helped set the tone and raise targets for new goals in membership, sponsorship, and visibility.
ART OFF THE WALL
When your cash flow and foot traffic is low in an art gallery, what can be done to raise funds? Slyly introduced as an evening of ‘art collecting’, it was designed to attract young families to decorate homes and meet local artists. Art Bingo brought an injection of cash and dispelled the winter doldrums in a fun and accessible local night out on the town. Created the committee and recruited the artists to curate a lively evening of competition and neighborly fun.
BUMPKIN ISLAND ART ENCAMPMENT
A gem of an island suffered a visitation problem, as it was located in a remote-area of Boston Harbor, closest to the South Shore of Boston. Our role was to help navigate the complex logistics for a three-day art experience with nearly 100 artists. Over 700 visitors found themselves on a rarely visited Bumpkin Island—a part of the Boston Harbor Islands National Park Area. Inspired by the homestead act, artists were given a plot of land to improve and decorate, and to leave no trace of their encampment upon departure. Service provided was managing the behind-the-scenes relationships, with a public-perspective lens, to ensure an unforgettable visit to a public park.
REIMAGINED & SPECTACULAR EVENTS
Ensuring events embody a mission is joyful work. Chicken dinners are boring. Inclusivity is king.
BANNED IN BOSTON
Never a chicken dinner but in need of real change, as a younger philanthropic set described a disconnect between fundraising night and the mission at hand. The event is a Boston-based original musical and comedy evening with a proud tradition of a night of bad acting and off key singing from the whosie-whatsits across politics, business, media and broadway. As co-producer, it was re- envisioned from the traditional—and tipsy— hour on the House of Blues stage into a live-virtual event as a 45-minute live-stream, in a meta-style telling the organizations’ story, mission, and set up within a classic comedy trope of mistaken identity. Over 1000 donors tuned into the live stream, raising over $620,000. Phew.
FESTIVAL
Redesign of existing fundraising elements in support of the largest, annual three-day arts festival on the South Shore. Introduced and implemented new revenue streams and acquisition strategies with an aim to grow organization leadership and funding. Taking a page from ‘Art Basel’ preview evening, private dine-arounds, ‘tent-talks’ and more.
SPECTACLE ON SPECTACLE
The dilemma was ‘none of our stakeholders ever visit the islands they support’. So, we brought them there by boat, and the island sold itself. A 15 minute ferry ride helped to activate and introduce a ‘new’ Boston Harbor Island that was a former landfill-turned into environmentally sustainable park and marina. Boston’s philanthropic social scene gathered for a tented evening picnic under the stars on what felt like a private island getaway. Creating an easy introduction to volunteer opportunities and a view to die for, this event launched a now cemented “do not miss” event in the city’s social set, while bringing the island to life.
BOSTON TEA PARTY
Who’s party is this? How to recognize different narratives and viewpoints and honor a nation’s history? The staff of Old South Meeting House started by recruiting Revolutionary reenactors in its efforts to revamp an annual event commemorating the start of the American Revolution. It involved more than 100 volunteer reenactors and 600 viewers, and a parade through the streets of Boston to the harbor to ‘dump the tea into the sea’. A completely overhauled event activated all audience participation and sponsorship.